Send Down the Rain(29)

She choked back a cry and said, “Thank you.”

“If you need anything. Anything at all. Really.”

He meant it, and I knew that. Bobby had never lacked sincerity. It was one of the reasons so many loved him.

Allie hugged him, and then he turned to look at me again. He then glanced toward the corner of the cemetery at our parents’ graves, slid on his sunglasses, returned to his car, and drove out of the cemetery.

Two boys appeared and lowered the coffin into the ground. Allie stood crying quietly. I fed my hand inside her arm, turned her gently, and led her away from the hole back to her house, where she once again climbed into bed and slept like Jake.


SOMETHING WAS BOTHERING ME. The location of Jake’s cane. Nearly a quarter mile behind the crash site. Yes, the blast could have blown it that far. Farther, even. But it was unscathed. Not a scratch. And things that have been blown up usually show evidence of that. While Allie slept I returned to the crash site and nosed around. I was no expert on semis, but nowhere on any piece of metal or frame or door or anywhere did anything say Peterbilt. Which struck me as odd.

As I was studying the wreckage, two black Denalis pulled in behind me. My brother stepped out. No jacket. No tie. Sleeves rolled up. “Got a minute?”

I followed the Denalis back to the cemetery. Bobby got out and waited for me, and we walked together toward Mom’s and Dad’s graves. Rosco made the rounds of each headstone, peeing on several. Ending on Dad’s. I chewed two antacids.

Bobby looked at me, then down at the grave and back at me. “Been awhile.”

“Yep.”

Mom died two decades ago. Dad followed some time later. He bought the plots when they married, which I always found rather morbid. It wasn’t my decision to put him here. I hadn’t seen him since we laid her to rest.

Bobby asked, “You make his funeral?”

“No.”

“Me either.” We watched as a yellow trail of Rosco’s urine snaked across the sand. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“The day we buried Mom.”

“Really?” He looked surprised.

My brother and I hadn’t talked this much in a long, long time.

“On my way off the island, I stopped to fill up with gas. Evidently Dad had heard about the funeral and had come to either pay his last respects or dig through her personals for a few nickels. I bumped into him at the counter. He didn’t recognize me. I was taller. Thicker. He shoulder-bumped me, mumbled something angry, and then stood pumping gas into a worn-out ragtop Mustang. I returned to the pump where he was still mumbling something derogatory about my being a ‘punk with a ponytail.’ I remember chuckling, and he asked me what was so funny. I said, ‘You are, old man.’

“He got swol’ up and cussed me. Said something about teaching me some respect. I realized he had no idea who I was. I broke his jaw, fractured his left eye socket, and left him lying unconscious on the concrete. Driving out, I pitched his keys in the retention pond.”

Bobby laughed. “Did you feel better?”

“Not really.”

He watched me chewing the last of the antacids. “You still drinking milk and eating Oreos?”

I smiled. “Yeah.”

He slid off his sunglasses and turned them in his hand. “How you been?”

“Good days and bad. You?”

“Same.” He could never lie in front of Mom. “You need anything?”

I chuckled. “You guys invented a time machine yet?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Let me know when you do.”

“You’ll be the first.”

“And you could tell those guys at the VA to stop hassling me over my insulin.”

“I’ll get right on it.” He glanced at the fresh, upturned earth of Jake Gibson’s grave. “Allie going to be okay?”

I shrugged. “She’s sleeping now.”

“How’d you hear?”

“It’s a long story, but in short, I saw the smoke. And you?”

“She called.”

I nodded. “Makes sense.”

“It’s not like that.” He shook his head. “Truth is, she asked me if I knew how to find you. I told her I did not. I told her I thought you had a cabin somewhere in the mountains, but as for a phone . . . I had no idea.”

I stared at Momma’s headstone. “Sometimes it’s just better if the world can’t find me and . . .” I laughed. “I can’t find the world.”

Bobby nodded at the two graves. “They’d be proud.”

“She would.” I spat. “Not sure what would have made him proud.”

He stared into Dad’s name and back into our childhood. “Strange how something so little can determine so much of your life.”

I nodded but said nothing.

He brushed the acorns off Mom’s grave. “Well . . . she’d be proud.”

“Of what?”

“You and me . . . standing here talking. With me still alive.”

I looked at him. “Bobby, I never wanted you dead. Not even on the bad days.” I paused long enough to raise his eyes to mine. “You still looking over your shoulder?”

He looked at me, glanced away, and then stared at me out of the corner of his eye. The real reason he’d brought me here. “Should I be?”